Callahan went to the counter by the window (the door doing a neat do-si-do around him when he turned) and jotted a note, first introducing himself as a friend of the man who had helped Tower with Jack Andolini. He told Deepneau and Tower to leave their car where it was, and to leave some of the lights on in the place where they were staying, and then to move somewhere close by—a barn, an abandoned camp, even a shed. To do it immediately. Leave a note with directions to where you are under the driver’s side floormat of your car, or under the back porch step, he wrote. We’ll be in touch. He hoped he was doing this right; they hadn’t talked things out this far, and he’d never expected to have to do any cloak-and-dagger stuff. He signed as Roland had told him to: Callahan, of the Eld . Then, in spite of his growing unease, he added another line, almost slashing the letters into the paper: And make this trip to the post office your LAST. How stupid can you be???

He put the note in an envelope, sealed it, and wrote AARON DEEPNEAU OR CALVIN TOWER, GEN’L DELIVERY on the front. He took it back to the counter. “I’ll be happy to buy a stamp,” he told her again.

“Nawp, just two cent’ for the envelope and we’re square.”

He gave her the nickel left over from the store, took back his three cents change, and headed for the door. The ordinary one.

“Good luck to ye,” the postlady called.

Callahan turned his head to look at her and say thanks. He caught a glimpse of the unfound door when he did, still open. What he didn’t see was Eddie. Eddie was gone.

Six

Callahan turned to that strange door as soon he was outside the post office. Ordinarily you couldn’t do that, ordinarily it swung with you as neatly as a square-dance partner, but it seemed to know when you intended to step back through. Then you could face it.

The minute he was back the todash chimes seized him, seeming to etch patterns on the surface of his brain. From the bowels of the cave his mother cried, “There-now, Donnie, you’ve gone and let that nice boy commit suicide! He’ll be in purgie forever, and it’s your fault!”

Callahan barely heard. He dashed to the mouth of the cave, still carrying the Press-Herald he’d bought in the East Stoneham General Store under one arm. There was just time to see why the box hadn’t closed, leaving him a prisoner in East Stoneham, Maine, circa 1977: there was a thick book sticking out of it. Callahan even had time to read the title, Four Short Novels of Sherlock Holmes . Then he burst out into sunshine.